UB40’s Ali Campbell quit beer addiction after having hypnosis

UB40 singer Ali Campbell hasn’t drunk beer since he had hypnosis 15 years ago.

“I’ve always worried about my weight, partly because I used to be a heavy drinker,” the Red Red Wine star told The Daily Mail newspaper. “I was hypnotised 15 years ago and had aversion therapy, where I had to visualise a giant ten-pint glass getting more and more disgusting.

“I haven’t drunk clear beer since, but I still have the occasional Guinness.”

Ali also suffers from type 2 diabetes – another reason he has attempted to shed the pounds. He attempted to undergo a lifestyle transformation by juicing, but soon realised that was doing little to help his health.

“I’ve had type 2 diabetes for a few years, so eating healthily is important,” he explained. “I was quite heavily into juicing, having a couple of pints of something like carrot, apple and ginger a day, thinking I was being super-healthy.

“But I was having so much fruit sugar that it made my diabetes worse, so I scaled it back.”

Another condition Ali has had in the past is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – where depression is prompted by grey weather. However, moving to Jamaica for 17 years helped, and now the singer lives in Dorset, England, where he gets his fair share of vitamin D to keep his spirits up.

“I’m pretty positive but I used to get SAD,” he said. “Even as a child, I’d get very depressed because of the dark winters and horrid yellow lighting inside.

“It’s part of the reason I moved to Jamaica for 17 years in the Eighties. It made a huge difference. I live in Christchurch, Dorset, by the sea now. I still get SAD but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was.”